(NAPSI)—While stopped at a red light the other day, I glanced in my rearview mirror. In the car behind me, the mom (and driver) was talking on her cell phone while her teenage daughter sat in the passenger seat. I wondered what that young girl might have shared with her mom if mom had just put down the phone.

While we worry that electronic media is overtaking our kids’ lives, more and more adults seem to be too locked in to their phone and computer screens to notice that it’s happening to them as well. The result is that modern media is stealing away face-to-face time between parents and their children, fracturing these most important relationships.

The Boys Town Model aims to mend those breaks. Designed to help children and families build healthy relationships, our model has undergone years of research that shows it delivers significant and lasting positive results for families across the country.

You can use its principles and strategies to change your and your child’s media habits and recapture valuable face-to-face time. Closing the media-induced gaps in your relationship with your child can open up real communication and bring you closer together.

Laura Buddenberg, Boys Town author and family expert, has some great advice on how parents can make these changes and bring their family back together. I encourage you to watch her “At Home With Kids” video presentation, “Texts, Tweets and TV: How Much Is Too Much?” and learn what you can do to create more family time while balancing the use of electronic media in your home. For parenting tips, go to www.parenting.org.

• Father Boes is president and national executive director of Boys Town, which has been saving children and healing families for more than 90 years. He offers more good advice at www.boystown.org.

 

On the Net:North American Precis Syndicate(NAPSI)